I believe in coyotes and time as an abstract

Last night Maud and I were talking about PEN's Reason and Faith event thingy that she attended. On the record, she had this to say about Martin Amis:

If reading Amis' last novel was "like your favourite uncle being caught in a school playground, masturbating," his new one, about Mohammed Atta, promises to be like being trapped in a room with that same uncle for a week as he swigs from bottle after bottle of Jamesons and rails against the Illuminati.

There's no love left on Earth and God is dead in Heaven

I know this will come as a surprise to many of you, but I don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day. It was pretty much ruined for me during my sojurn in Savannah, a city that claims to have the second-largest celebration in America. As spurious as that may sound, I can tell you for certain: it's an event of nightmarish proportions. They dye the river green, they dye the beer green, they dye the puke green. People descend from the hills and the local military bases in droves and you wake up that morning to find an F-150 parked on your lawn. What was the name of that made-for-TV horror movie with the gigantic tarantulas that take over the town and eat people? It's like that, only if the tarantulas were wearing green and white Cat-in-the-Hat novelty hats and carrying commemorative plastic cups.

Anyhow, predictably, here's a tune for the day: Sally MacLennane, by the Pogues

I'm dying, mommy

"Here, have some of this."

"Chai liqueur? No."

"Try it."

"You try it. What are you supposed to drink it with?"

"I dunno. You could probably put it in your chai, I guess."

At this point, the author makes a terrible, terrible mistake.

Epilogue:
I want to find the inventor of chai liqueur, stab him in the eyes, and send him back to hell.

I wish they didn't set mirrors behind the bar

Found this photo in a shoebox with a bunch of paystubs and phone bills from 1995. (I never throw anything away.) A seemingly mundane photo, but full of import. The story's over there.

In 27 (+ 3) years, I've drunk 50,000 beers

Hey hey! This 30 thing ain't so bad. For one, no one can ask me what I want to do with my career anymore. Now they can just assume I'm wildly unambitious! It's great.

Friday night was the big Birthday Soiree for Me and Chris-the-Neighbor at TEN63. (Our dear friend A permitted us to use it afterhours and we are forever in her debt, in ways she won't discover until the, ah, heating unit vents get kicked into service.)(I had no idea I could throw salami slices with such accuracy.)

There's no point in asking; you'll get no reply

So BEE sycophant friend Jaime Clarke emailed the esteemed Maud Newton, who is too polite to tell people who email her asking for linkola that they are basically no better than perverts and ferret owners in her eyes.* She charitably posted a link to his site, which is how I found it this morning.

Bury my liver at Trader Vic's

Unsurprisingly, I spent the weekend consuming more fat and cholesterol than the average Inuit takes in in a month and more alcohol than Montgomery Clift drank in his lifetime (God rest his soul).

It must be 5 o'clock somewhere in the world

My alma mater's most recent alumni magazine had a paean to the greatest bar in the world, Pinkie Master's,in Savannah, GA. Oddly enough, it mentions the old jukebox, now long gone, a loss I've lamented for years.

You know that when the Travel section of the Times catches onto a town, that signals the final death knell. (And hell, they mention Wall's BBQ, arguably one of the best restaurants in Savannah, but not The Crystal Beer Parlor? Did they even visit?) Not to mention, the best bars closed long ago, but still, I've got a soft place in my heart for Savannah, home of the alcoholic "to-go" cup and kamikaze gators.

All They Will Find Is My Beer and My Shirt

Here is a cameraphone picture of Murph's.

The highlight of our trip to St. Augustine was spending Saturday night at Murph's Bar (which, if you're heading that way, is next to a laundromat in a strip mall on A1A in Crescent Beach--there's usually a couple Harleys out front; you can't miss it) getting drunk and listening to the most amazing band.

They were tuning up as we walked in. In my experience, that's rarely an auspicious sign, especially when all you really wanna do is hang out, drink whiskey, and chat with local felons. But I recalled that Murph had pretty decent taste in music and then I noticed a guy tuning up a mandolin and I thought, Well hell yeah.

Equips a young man for society

From yesterday's Juventus v Liverpool match. What you don't see is the Liverpool fans who were holding up the sign that reads AT LEAST WE DON'T FUCKING CRUSH OURSELVES TO DEATH IN A FATUOUS, MINCING ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE RIOTING HORDES.

Seize Him!

This cracked me right the fuck up:

William Lee, 48, died after witnesses say he became belligerent and shoved an attendant during an evening American Airlines flight from Los Angeles and was physically restrained by seven men, possibly members of a rugby team from Australia or New Zealand.

Scene 1: Gym
Me: He's been on that eliptical machine for 45 minutes now. The limit is 30 minutes per machine.
Rugby players: [Charging.] RAAAAAAAAAAAA!
[Eliptical hog attempts to run away from the rugby players, trips over barbells that no one bothers to re-rack, falls to floor, is set upon by rugby players. Emits noise like deflating balloon.]

Scene 2: Crowded subway train
Me: Why she gotta be all pushing her gym bag into my kidneys LIKE THAT.
Rugby players: Unh? Grrrrr.
Me: Get her!
Gym bag wench: [muffled] Ack! Wheeze!

Scene 3: Bar
Me: This is ridiculous. I've been waiting here for ten minutes and the bartender is ignoring me.
Bartender: You've had two beers and a vodka drink and you're behaving in a belligerent manner. I'm not serving you any more alcohol.
Me: Crush him!
Rugby players: [Thud thud pound pound thud.]

I need a beer and it's titty-squeezin' time

Holy crap, is it really Mardi Gras already? It came early this year.

Happy Mardi Gras. I have one good* Mardi Gras story. Somewhere out there--well, specifically, it's at the Great Leader's house, I think--is a photo of us, from the vantage point of the projection TV, sitting on the couch and crying.

[UPDATE: The Great Leader has come through. Here it is. I really *am* crying, though it's partly from exhaustion, and partly from laughing really hard at the absurd "Huis Clos" vibe of the evening. The guy to my right was my aimless-but-well-meaning boyfriend. Shortly after this trip he got on a bus to Colorado. I wonder how he's doing. Wow, you can almost see his nutsack. What *is* that behind us? Jesus.]

*Void in MN, WA, RI, and OH.

This might explain why my apartment on the northside of Williamsburg was always infested

Fortunately, fruitflies can't tell you about how their novel has reached an interesting stage:

The scientists discovered a mutation in the Drosophila LIM-only, or Lmo, gene that is highly sensitive to cocaine - a breakthrough that may provide a base for the possible development of drugs able to combat cocaine addiction, according to a paper published by the research team. Blau discovered that the Lmo gene is located in the flies' internal biological clock.

Brad, the secret is out.

I don't think I had too much to drink last night, but apparently I went to bed and "blurted out something about like 'I'm on the bread again!' then garbled 'bread bed brad bed bread' then laughed and passed out."

Perhaps it is time for me to go back on the wagon. The last time I had to do that was when I was at a bar drinking on someone's expense account and I ended up having something called a Flaming Lamborghini* which at the time seemed to go down well, so well in fact that I went on to have a 3-hour-long conversation (none of which I remember) with the bartender about his much-younger boyfriend troubles and then walk him home "just to make sure he got there safe." I did make it home that night without getting shanked in an alleyway, but I woke up the next morning feeling like death eating a cracker. I was so hungover that I almost couldn't make it to my ultrasound appointment the next day.

[pause for effect]

No, it wasn't one of those ultrasounds, silly! But that's neither here nor there. The way my stomach was jumping up into my mouth, you'd think I had to swallow the damned wand instead of taking it in the business end. As the Russian technician went at me like Bella Loves Jenna, I must admit: I threw up a little in my mouth. "You not want to have children?" she queried after ascertaining that I wasn't there for the same reason as all the Orthodox women in the waiting room.

"Not right now," I said, and silently added Because right now, lady, all I can handle is throwing up after drinking the occasional shot meant for someone half my age.

*One part Cointreau, one part Bailey's, and one part Sambuca, served on fire (duh) in a brandy snifter and consumed with a partner through individual cocktail straws. Yick.

Elizabeth, I'm coming to join you

A Presbyterian minister collapsed and died in mid-sentence of a sermon after saying "And when I go to heaven ...," his colleague said Monday.

OK, if this weren't a blog post (and thus by definition a hack piece already), I would say that this is a hack blog post.

Hm. I dunno, it's still kinda funny.

Champagne for my real friends

My goodness, just as I was about to pull his little card from my Rolodex, The Minor Fall, The Major Lift pops out of the cave, just like Jesus. Let's hope he doesn't see his shadow; I won't be able to take 6 more weeks of winter.

How many children have we known like this?

Y'know, I thought my xmas was a little weird and disfunctional, what with my mother dropping every single potato on the floor before serving it and me breaking the news to her that I'm sure as shit moving to another country sometime soon*, but damn if Bad News Hughes doesn't have us beat.

*Slight exaggeration. I'll only be disconnecting my phone and putting tinfoil up on the windows of my apartment.

If We Make it Thru December

OK, I've been upstate 4 days now and mama, I'm comin' home.

My mother might be deteriorating mentally, in ways that would be funny if they weren't so profoundly depressing. (Or is it that they'd be profoundly depressing if they weren't so funny?)

Ride the lightning, Jesus!

If God Were King of the United States: Teh Xmas Crazy has arrived early.

Absolut Naptime

I only just noticed the recipe in the Absolut Wonderland ads. It's vodka, 7Up and grenadine.

It's like the pedophile's Shirley Temple.

L'enfer, c'est les autres, mais le plupart du temps, c'est moi.

Dramatis personae: Me and my friend E
E: What's up? Wanna tie one on tonite?
Me: Can't. I got some freelance.
E: What about tomorrow?
Me: Sure. [Looks at calendar.] Shit, it's World AIDS Day.
E: Hm.
Me: I suppose we could respectfully observe that in a bar.

Agony, Thy Name is Aunt Linda

Jesus, I am in the throes of yet another terrible hangover brought on by a member of my family. And this ugly armchair is still in my office, mocking and threatening me by its mere presence.

Ouch!

I just read this quote from TBogg on Tom Tomorrow's blog:

"I look at the big map and all of the red in flyover country and I feel like I've been locked in a room with the slow learners. "

Hey, some of us here are on your side, pal. Or we were, until you said that.

He laughed I felt like a gringo

OK, I leave for Costa Rica this Saturday. I will be in San Jose, Montezuma, and Quepos. Anyone have any recommendations? Also, I was looking here, and wondering: is Day of the Dead celebrated in CR? Just curious. Please edumacate me. [Edit: Hmm, I guess it is.]

Sick girl

So, guess where I was last nite? At Roseland seeing Social Distortion. Jealous?

Heh, but seriously, it was a great show. It was a show that, in all respects, I wish I had seen when I was 16, which is approximately the last time I listened to SD in earnest. The crowd was 80% male, and 50% superhot in a way that would have made my 16-y-o self moist with desire. (Actually, I still find rockabilly guys attractive, but much less so, given that so many of 'em seem to be Bush supporters. But I digress.) It was a strange, though not surprising mix of people: punks/rockabilly types, frat boys, and guys in pleated Dockers. My 16-y-o self would've poured my soda down those Dockers, but the 29-y-o me was content to sneer in their general direction. One of them thought I was flirting with him or something and kept trying to catch my eye for the rest of the night. Note to self: Learn to sneer better.

When P and I arrived at the show we walked back to the bar and I jokingly said, "This is a crowd that would buy us drinks all night." And then, as if to prove that the universe is as crass and sexist as I am, three guys approached us, all of whom were named Matt. Matt 1 worked in cryogenics, Matt 2 was unemployed, and Matt 3 was a pilot. All three were from Allentown. Matts 1 and 3 were voting for Bush, though Matt 1 said that he'd promised to vote for Kerry in exchange for a soup recipe.

They offered to buy us drinks using the time-honored tradition of "I'm going to make you drink something you're frightened of." In this case: Old Grandad. Ick.

"No way, I don't drink that shit, it makes you sterile," I told them with absolute certainty. Though really, I don't drink it because it's fucking awful. I don't care what Jack Kerouac said.

Still, two seconds later, P and I found ourselves throwing back shots of Old Grandad and trying not to projectile vomit. Matts 1 and 2, sensing that they were getting nowhere with us using this tactic (Which is true: I'll drink anything alcoholic if you tell me you think I can't/won't. My biggest error? Galliano.), dumped Matt 3 and headed to the stage. Matt 3--actually a pretty nice guy for a Bush supporter--was telling us about being a pilot. Then he admitted that he wasn't a big SD fan and that Matts 1 and 2 had dragged him here. "I'm too old for rock shows," he said.

"Wait a minute. How old are you?" I spat.
"28. How old are you guys?"
"33."
"29."
"Oh," he said, and 5 seconds later, "Well, you ladies have a good night and enjoy the show."

Dissed and dismissed for being geriatric! And called a lady! That hurt. We should've weaseled more drinks out of them before our Fixodent loosened.

Oh, and for those who care about the MUSIC: SD put on a great show, and I was surprised to recognize fully 75% of their set--they must've played older stuff? They ended with Ball and Chain and encored with Nickel and Dime and something else I don't recall because at that point it was 110 degrees in Roseland and I was itching to pee.

Fast and Furious

A belated life-lesson: Open bar != quality beverages. There's the rub. Sure, you *think* you can drink $10 (or whatever the price of admission is) worth of well drinks, but as it turns out, there is no such thing as getting your money's worth of generic vodka. Is this what economists mean by diminishing returns?

N and I arrived at Rothko* (we were there to see Shy Child, and not to change the subject, but they rocked out with their cocks out**) in time to "enjoy" 1.5 hours' worth of open bar (Reeves, on the other hand, was looking so young and freshfaced that they wouldn't let him in without his ID and had to go back home to get it). After a disappointing round of well bourbon and soda, we concluded that it was essential to disguise the taste of the liquor. Gin and tonic for him, cranberry and vodka (ick) for me. Still terrible, though strong. Noting the time frame--45 minutes had sped by--we realized that we weren't pacing ourselves properly and began ordering back drinks hand over fist. Reeves arrived and, in order to catch up, hovered at the end of the bar simultaneously waving a single above his head and chugging a canning jar of vodka, Adam's apple bobbing frantically.

Thirty minutes left: I didn't know it was possible to sweat while drinking, but the exertion was getting to me. The sword of Damocles was dangling above our little green wristbands.

Fifteen minutes left: "Yes, may I have a vodka-tequila-gin-and-tonic please? In a pint glass? No ice please."

With five minutes left, I threw (up) in the towel and got a diet Coke. I realize now that I should have done so earlier in the evening, as this morning I am wracked with a relentless headache and baby snakes shits. Never again. Except maybe tomorrow.

Because tomorrow there are two shows you ought to go see. Actually, you can't literally see them both, given that they will take place at the same time in two different boroughs, so you'll have to make a decision. The incomparable Crimson Sweet are playing at Lit, which is where I'll be. N will be attending the DC Snipers show at Trash. (NB: Unlike Shy Child, the DC Snipers might possibly rock out with their cocks out: there was an [airquotes]alleged[/airquotes] incident involving group public urination at their last show.) Anyhow, you make the call.

*Rather underwhelming, to say the least. Felt like Williamsburg with its interior design half-assedry. Mean girls. Average-looking men. Everyone is brunette, which I think means that the Zionist Cabal now officially controls Hollywood, the media, the banks, and Having a Good Time in NYC.
**Not literally, which is unfortunate.

Briefly

I'm a little woozy this morning. What kind of idiot has a birthday party on a Thursday night?

::snaps fingers, points to self::

This guy.

Last night was a whole lotta fun. I was going to post pictures but as it turns out there's one of me and then like 20 of what appears to be closeups of someone's ear. That's the last time I pass my camera around.

The Devil Made Me Do It the First Time

Last night I got damn near squeezed to death by two people I hadn't seen in a great while. Not at the same time, mind you: that's the type of thing that could be construed as premeditated.

What I'm listening to: Black Rose, by Waylon Jennings. It's a shoutout to one who knows, and who's coming up to visit soon enough.

History: I don't know when I first heard this song, but I know the most memorable time it was playing. I was 20, in the front seat of my boyfriend's suped-up BMW 3-series (oh, you know, the Haartge kit, the Schnitzer tires...think I fucking remember?), going to the Krispie Kreme after hitting some of Savannah's finer drinking establishments. There's this one sharp, almost 90-degree turn on Skidaway Drive (was that its name? seems fitting) that sent Caroline, who was sitting in the back seat, from one side of the car to the other, which required that my boyfriend do some overcorrecting on the road. (She had a lot of junk in the trunk, see.) We laughed at the time, as Waylon played, but later on in Krispie Kreme as we watched the sad old graveyard-shift donut-making ladies behind the plexiglas, my boyfriend leaned over and whispered to me, "We almost didn't make that last turn, you know."

Baby Pigs

I went home this weekend to attend to my mother, the nine-and-a-half-fingered wonder. Really, it was nothing that a really expensive dinner couldn't fix. (Well, morale-wise; dinners don't make fingers regenerate, AFAIK.) I also got to pet some baby pigs, who squealed with delight as they forced themselves on me. Then I went and played with my best friend's baby, now 7 months old and very much a piglet herself with fat thrusting arms and legs and a vocabulary that consists of "EEEEEEEEEEEE!" and "PPPPBBBBBBTTTTHHHHT!" I realized that her pornstar name (first pet's name + childhood street name) was Salty Cummings, and I told her parents so.

NB: Don't tell parents these things.

Jammin' Econo

Fishfucker's rolled into Sacramento in his fuck truck and offers us a tasty cocktail, the 3 AM Death Knell:

Just take the Green Apple Vodka, pour it into a tumbler you've filled with ice, and try to eyeball the halfway point. It really doesn't matter if you hit it, because let's face it, if you're making this drink you're already shitty enough to fuck that girl who lives upstairs with the wandering eye (which, hey, wandering eye girls, don't get me wrong -- that's hot, i mean, it's endearing, but, still, you live upstairs: COME ON)

Who's lookin' good today, who's lookin' good in every way

Sunday morning found me particularly grateful that I had not chosen as my New Year's resolution "Must drink less, and more responsibly." (I do regret that my resolution wasn't something along the lines of "Get spectacularly drunk at least once a week and alienate your friends," because if that had been the case, I'd be doing splendidly, wouldn't I.)

So, okay, Saturday morning, I got up bright and early, puttered around the house with every intention of thoroughly cleaning it, and went to Teddy's for brunch with my friend N. This is how it all started. I had a bloody mary with brunch. And the problem with drinking a single boozy beverage at 1 pm is that you simply must continue drinking all day long or else you will fall into a torpor and be useless for the next 12 hours. My drinking bravura thoroughly stoked, I managed to convince N that we should have a pint or so at Iona, to which he grudgingly conceded after I promised him there'd be a football game to watch.

So it was me and N, the bartender (who was already a little tipsy), 4 postal carriers, an old guy, and a rather drunk Englishman whom, the tipsy bartender explained, had been there since last night. We were introduced to him unceremoniously when the bartender switched our drink orders. And from that moment on, our lives were changed.

One thing is certain; we are *never* drinking again

It's a bad night when the last thing your friends tell you (trying to be helpful, I presume) is "Don't puke on anyone, okay?"

In the spirit of this, I present to you I Wonder If You're Drunk Enough To Sleep With Me Tonight, by Ballboy, who, as some of you may recall, had the misfortune of playing with VHS or Beta.

Playing doctor

Listen to this jive ass shit:
"Without medical advice, use of Plan B by teens will be disastrous," said Dr. John Bruchalski of the Catholic Medical Association. "We are passing up the opportunity to educate our teens about the hazards of sexual intercourse."

Oh, yeah. Right when they need emergency contraception - i.e. after they've already had sex - that's a perfect opportunity!

Then again, it's probably difficult for Dr. Bruchalski to think clearly with the archbishop's tongue in his 'ear.

He's the cranky one...

Some people say that bowling alleys got big lanes. Some people say that bowling alleys all look the same.

Coming to you from the aforementioned Corporate Death Star, it's me, tizzie. While Dana is attaining enlightment from a strict regime of fasting and high colonics, I'll be bringing you messages of sweetness and light.

Or not! Let's start with this game: can you count how many things are fucked up in this picture?

Bret Easton Ellis and I were just discussing this very topic as we snorted coke off the same stripper's tits

Do artists need narcotics even more than ordinary people?

The Paris hashish users resembled the Californian potheads of the 1960s in their idealism, poses and self-indulgence. "We were troubadours, rebels," said Flaubert, "above all we were artists." He and his contemporaries used hashish as part of their rebellion against middle-class conventions and industrial capitalism - what he castigated as "the shrivelled runt of human aspirations" typified by "railways, enema pumps, cream cakes and the guillotine". Parisian hashish smokers and eaters remained subversive types. As late as the 1870s, Arthur Rimbaud smoked hashish during the defiant phase of his adolescence when he was contemplating becoming an urban terrorist.

TMF,TML wouldn't use this joke, so I am.

By the time I get to Phoenix, I'll be wasted.

Just in time for the holidays

A holiday as auspicious as the celebration of hundreds of years of rape, pillaging, socioeconomic slavery, and football needs a proper cocktail. Put away that Beaujolais Nouveau, and lay off the Drambuie. We've found the perfect pork martini:

Wow. This Martini packed a pork wallop. The aroma was overpowering, I have to admit. But that masked the oil; I saw the oil before, really, see my comments under "Transmogrification," supra, but I tasted no oil. I declaim this a Martini you will love or hate, no middle ground. You could get drunk on the bouquet alone, a secondary high.

I'm the luckiest guy on the upper east side...

A very late (and unsolicited) entry for Why They Hate Us.

There is water underground

Last night I struggled to get the cap off the meds bottle. I'm not mentally deficient; there really was something wrong with the childproof mechanism. I think I stripped it. My growing frustration was matched by my growing shame. "Here," I thrust the bottle at K. "Open it!" Pause. "Please."

When he couldn't get it open either I knew that the pill bottle engineering had failed miserably, not me.

I pulled out a breadknife and started sawing at the orange plasic. "C'mon, c'mon," I muttered. I felt remorse about not investing in a set of Ginsu knives.

"Would you like to try using my Leatherman?" K's brother asked helpfully.

I shot him a scornful look. "Don't ever tell anyone about this." But the pliers attachment did help pry a keyhole in the rigid plastic. I dumped the last of the pills into my palm and sighed.

My mother would be so proud.*

*She would also be proud that I was ironing a pair of dirty pants to wear to work this morning. "Never iron dirty clothes!" she used to tell me. "It seals in the dirt!" She's right about that. But she also used to warn me against the evils of wearing one's socks inside out ("It makes them wear unevenly!") and wearing "day clothes" to bed at night ("It MAKES them WEAR UNEVENLY!"). She's got her own agendas.

All fork, no pork

Carnival strippers, via Daze Reader.

Meanwhile have made myself seriously ill by eating too much macrobiotic food. I didn't think that was possible. So now I've wolfed down a chocolate bar to balance the yin with the yang. I've got the spins.

Oh, and...

AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE! OY OY OY!

When I say I'm in love you best believe I'm in LUV, L-U-V

Maccers makes me wish I were an outie, not an innie: Ah life. The World Trade Center can fall down but some guys will always remain optimistic cheesy cunts.

Shotglass hits the wall, a tiny victory

Last night I went out with my dad to DOC, where we go almost every time he's in the city and where he never fails to embarrass me in front of the very goodlooking Italian waitstaff. Last night the very pretty one gave us glasses of Mirto, which she described as "blackberry liqueur." Blackberries from Chernobyl, maybe. It's got myrtle berries in it too, I guess. Whoa fucking nellie. We had simultaneous out-of-body experiences.

This morning I managed to argue successfully against using "http://" when referring in copy to web addresses without "www". This is tougher than it sounds when the person closest to your age in your department is still 25 years older than you are. They still use terms like "Information Superhighway." And "log on." Google is a novelty of pie-in-the-sky proportions.

Oh, and I know that this site looks screwy in IE6, don't it? We're working on that. We're Trying Our Best.

Accidental Karaoke

(Ok, I know the premise is approximately as plausible as, um, accidental bukkake, but indulge me.)

(Oh, and don't believe a word that Maud said about last night. Whose word are you gonna take? Mine, or the girl who had to have extra digits removed from both hands as a child?)

So last night Maud and I agreed to meet for A (emphasis on the long a) DRINK because we hadn't seen one another in awhile. It was still light out when we got to Enid's, which is roughly the epicenter of the Hipster Hellmouth. She was still in her work attire, looking every bit the professional she is. I had taken a sick day yesterday, so I'd only just changed out of my so-old-it's-nearly-transparent WFMU t-shirt and cut offs into something less...um...gamey.

Then 2 hours later we found ourselves performing karaoke. I called K and he grudgingly put down his Russian translations to come witness the spectacle. Maud's husband, OTOH, apparently had better things to do, like work or something, and was unmoved even after I called him 17 times. Undaunted, I threw down Surrender still relatively sober. I threw in a couple of kicks, a bit of the jazz hands, but you know how it goes--I was just warming up. Maud, on the other hand, sensing this was some sort of competition, tossed back her third Singapore Sling and outdid me with an eerily heartfelt rendition of Crazy On You (an obvious nod to Heart's Number One Fan).

Not to be outdone, I scoured the 400-page karaoke song list for my follow-up performance. The irony of offering such a large selection of songs to karaoke participants who are, by and large, drunk and thus suggestible, wasn't lost on me. Why offer a list at all? Why not just have the DJ delegate, like, "You! Sing 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'!"

Anyhow, I made my selection and did a highland fling onto the stage, where I performed a truly maudlin Jolene with a flaming baton routine.

Maud, meanwhile, screwed up enough gumption to storm onto the stage and sing Call Me while simultaneously drinking a glass of Everclear. I called her husband one more time and shouted "Listen!" I'm not sure if it was her pitch-perfect performance or the regurgitated-Everclear fireball she blew out of her mouth at the end (which could be appreciated even over the phone) or the power of Christ, but he was on the next B43 to Enid's. Success! No sooner had he marched in the door he was up there crooning Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).

Did I mention that K was observing our spectacle from underneath the table? Honestly, some people don't know how to have fun. I had to keep pinching him to fork over more Pink Lady money for me.

I was busy planning my third and final piece. How would I trump the fireball? (I considered those tricks with the pingpong balls I learned in Phuket, but really, that's just silly: where does one get pingpong balls at midnight in Willamsburg?) So I did the only thing I could do: I sang Everybody Wants You hanging from the ceiling by my hair.

I'd like to think that it was my trapeeze act that really got the audience psyched, but by the time I was back in my seat wiping off the baby oil, Maud was up there, standing on top of the monitor and belting out Black Dog wearing nothing but pasties with little propellers on them.

Fine Maud, you win--this time.

At this point, K felt moved to escort us out of the bar before a riot began. As we left, he threw his jacket over my head like I was in the McMartin Preschool Trial.

The rest is kind of a blur. At some point on the walk home K had to peel me off a lightpost, which I had climbed to sing "Pinball Wizard" at a higher-than-street-level altitude.

So all this merriment got me-n-Maud to thinking. Karaoke is pretty nerdy, right? But it's fun. And bloggers are pretty nerdy, right? And they don't get out and have fun nearly enough. So here's the deal. In two weeks, Monday, August 11, we will have the first official Revenge of the Blogger Nerds Enid's Karaoke Takeover, or RBNEKT for short. Seriously, it will be fun.

Stop groaning! It will be. C'mon, I know there's a few of you drama fags out there. And then there's the actual musicians among us. And to those of you who couldn't be arsed to set foot in Brooklyn unless the CHUD army took over Manhattan, those who sneer at trucker caps and eschew bars decorated with anything more than a stool, a jukebox, and a bottle of Maker's, those of you who would consider coming to Enid's but certainly not for karaoke, consider the gauntlet officially thrown down, motherfuckers. CAN YOU DIG IT?!?

I kid because I love.

Bring the noise. And the little propellers. The first one of youse to show up gets to sing "Suspicious Minds" with yours truly.

Wearing meatpants in the lion's cage

Last night I walked underneath the BQE (because under the BQE is the only place that isn't covered with six inches of slush) and went to Pete's with P for some drinks. "Remember that weirdo who was buying us drinks last time?" P asked as we walked in the door. Of course, there he was last night too. The first time we'd talked to him obligingly, but for someone trying to woo us with the promise of endless alcohol he was surprisingly tight-lipped. A half-hour passed, and this much we got: he was an ironworker currently working on the Triboro Bridge with an encyclopedic knowledge of Nick Lowe. He was also incredibly drunk.

Now, I don't mind making small talk with strange guys I meet in bars (hell, I practically made a career of it in college), but chatting with this guy was excruciating. Again, last night, he was wasted.

Strange enough, he recognized us when we walked in. We ordered our drinks hastily in an attempt to deflect his offers to buy them for us; talking to him was just too hard to be worth even free alcohol (a resounding gasp is heard the world over: There is something she won't do for free booze?). He actually remembered what we'd ordered before. But we were frantically slapping our bills on the bar (Can you mix that Manhattan any faster? It's only got three ingredients, two of which are infinitessimal in proportion...) before he even lurched in our direction.

Food for thought for those of you in the NYC area: it's midnight; he's hammered, and he has to be to work at 7 because he has to BUILD OUR MOTHERFUCKING BRIDGES.

Thankfully last night he left to run an errand shortly after we demurred his myriad free drink offers.

Later on, some other guy (this one more affable and not creepy) also offered to buy us drinks. Again, we demurred, but he insisted. We compromised: P and I split a gimlet. That satisfied him, and he went back to his end of the bar.

Our appetite for alcohol thoroughly sated (and then some), we left shortly thereafter. P made her way home to cook pork chops for her husband; I wended my way back under the BQE, dazily singing "Rapture" so as not to surprise any of the hidden, slumbering bodies; a warning of sorts: I am a stepping razor, don't you watch my size: I'm dangerous. Or crazy. Definitely not to be trifled with. (I learned this from the Pygmies: they run through the forests clapping so as not to surprise the jaguars. Or something like that.) Made it home safely (well, safe but for one wet foot: the last leg of my journey found me partially submerged in an ice puddle disguised as pavement. This wouldn't happen if the earth weren't buckling and shrivelling beneath my apartment building.), fell into bed, and still managed to make it to the gym at 7:30 am today.

(That last part is not really integral to the story but I just thought I'd brag.)